Page 21 of The Forbidden Cabrera Brother
‘Dante!’ She turned to him with desperation as she was hustled out of the car to find herself on the pavement. ‘I can’t afford to shop in a place like this!’
‘You’re engaged to my brother.’
‘What does that have to do with anything?’ She literally had a vision of fifty-pound notes blowing away from her savings account.
‘This is a ridiculous conversation. I can’t believe my brother would not spend money on you.’
‘I prefer to spend my own money buying my own clothes,’ she retorted angrily. ‘What sort of world do you live in, Dante? No, forget I said that! You enjoy throwing money at the women you go out with because it’s easier than the other option!’
‘You’re crossing lines.’ His jaw hardened. ‘Be careful.’
‘Or else what?’ Caitlin rolled her eyes and placed her hand belligerently on her hips. ‘Dante, it’s easier to spend money than it is to spend quality time, isn’t it?’
Dante flushed with outrage. ‘More tête-à-têtes with my brother about me?’
‘No! I’m just observant. I can see that Luisa is besotted with you but it’s not returned—and, yes, Alejandro did say that you weren’t keen on the notion of settling down.’
‘Nor, presumably, is he, or he would have done it sooner.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ She sighed. ‘I don’t like accepting stuff from guys. It doesn’t feel right. And I can’t afford to buy anything in any of the shops on this fancy street.’
This was a first for Dante. The idea that a woman might resent having presents lavished on her puzzled him. What she viewed as some kind of insult to her feminism, he saw as an expression of appreciation.
‘Caitlin, you’re going to be here for at least a week. Who knows? Maybe longer. If you can’t afford to spend money on yourself, then allow me. I do so on behalf of my brother. He can pay me back in due course, if it makes you feel easier. I hear what you’re saying about not wanting to accept anything from anyone, but I feel that Alejandro would not want to think of you traipsing down to the local flea market. You’re going to be entering a whole new dynamic when you marry my brother. Why not start adapting now? Besides, the flea market only opens on a Sunday.’
‘Because people get engaged doesn’t automatically mean they’re going to get married,’ Caitlin said vaguely. She realised that the deeper she dug her heels in, the odder it would seem to a guy like Dante, who lived in a completely different world from her. Alejandro shared that world. He would lavish gifts on whatever partner he ended up with.
She wasn’t going to win this one.
‘I suppose Alejandro—’
‘Good.’ He spun round on his heels and swept her along to a shopping experience she hadn’t banked on.
This was how the other half lived. She’d seen it on a grand scale in his mansion. The priceless artwork, the acres of polished marble, the invisibility of his staff paid to make his life as fuss-free as possible.
For the next three hours, she experienced it first-hand when it was exclusively directed at her.
He had chairs brought for him so that he could sit, his veiled expression revealing very little as clothes were fetched and carried. When money was no object, the attentiveness of the various boutique owners was ingratiating. They fawned and scurried and couldn’t do enough.
And something deep inside Caitlin responded with a feminine enjoyment that was shameful because it just wasn’t her.
Even before everything with her parents had fallen apart, plunging her into a financial nightmare, spending money on expensive clothes had never been her thing. Maybe it was her shape. In her head, expensive clothes were designed for a certain type of figure, one she didn’t possess. Maybe it was the way she had been brought up. Her parents had always been sensible with money because they’d never had a great deal of it and it was an attitude that had been passed down to her.
Shopping with Dante Cabrera was not a sensible experience. The opposite. He snapped his fingers and people hastened to please. She was the beneficiary of his largesse and it wasthrilling. She didn’t want it to be, but it was.
Silk and soft cottons were laid for her inspection. The finest leather was brought out on show. She had had to resist the temptation to lovingly stroke some of the items of clothing.
‘If you want an objective opinion,’ Dante had drawled, standing next to her in that very first exclusive boutique, when the glamorous woman in charge had hurried off to find the right size for a dress Caitlin had guiltily admitted to really liking, ‘then feel free.’
‘No, thank you,’ she had responded politely. But she had stillfelthis presence as he’d accompanied her on the shopping trip, had found her mind wandering back time and again to those dark, hooded eyes, his lean beauty, to the insane appeal of his lazy self-assurance.
His driver took bags of shopping to the car, patiently waiting wherever they happened to be.
It was exhausting and exhilarating at the same time and then, when it was over, when they were being ferried back to the house with half a store in the boot of the car, Dante murmured, softly, ‘You should wear something you bought today to visit my parents. I accepted an invitation on your behalf. They’re concerned about you...’
On a high from shopping, from breaking out of her comfort zone, temporarily freed from the unending stress of the past few months when every penny had had to be counted and allocated to a fund for her parents, Caitlin nodded. Yes. Why not? What was wrong with feeling like a living, breathing woman again? Just for an evening?
Dante’s low-slung Ferrari glided through the iron gates, which opened silently at the press of a button.
